What is the best leveling path right now? (BfA edition Guide)

[SirCowdog]

What a great guide. As a dedicated main since vanilla (I basically play one char since then, with a few exceptions) it's fascinating to see in how many different ways this game can be played.

It used to be a lot better in 7.3.5, where dungeon soloing was viable and fun, Method-0 still worked, and random queue was actually worth it. Now it's just "Quest or GTFO". And don't get me wrong here. I LIKE questing, but it was nice to have alternatives that were just as good or better. Now? Outside of a team of skilled and determined dungeon-runners, questing is hands down the best.

This guide got me tempted to actually level an alt, but I was wondering if you had given any thought to the time it takes you to do all the preparations. For example, I get that it might be helpful to get a Darkmoon Fair Top Hat, but does the time it saves overcompensate the time it takes to get the item in the first place?

How would you sort your recommendations by ( preparation time needed / leveling time saved ) ratio?

Honestly, if you've got the gold it's going to be a quick trip to the AH on your main, buy all the things you need/want, then mail them to your alt. IIRC the DMF Tophat can even be mailed to your own characters(can someone confirm this?), so that only requires a little bit of farming the DMF on a main. The time needed to get the hats is minor. They're cheap and easy.

I would definitely consider it worth the time to get the hats.

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Does it still apply for 8.0?

It does not. I just logged on and tested it. At level 86 enemies still take a fair amount of time to drop, but don't reward good exp. At 88 they're worth even less exp, but still take enough time to kill and do enough damage to be threatening in large numbers. No more blitzing through and AOEing.

[Deleted]

To give you some perspective I leveled both a LF Ret Paladin and BE Rogue (so one started from level 20 and the other from level 1). I focused on getting the achievements I was missing for the Loremaster, so not the most efficient route by any means. I was using full enchanted heirlooms (minus the ring) and the WoW-Pro addon though, as well as having War Mode turned on all the way.

Anyway both got to 110 at around 50h played. I messed up with my Pal by going to Legion once I hit 100 instead of finishing treasures and bonuses in WoD. All in all, if I picked the best zones and was only trying to level as fast as I could, I would probably could have done it in roughly 40h. Note that it would have a been A LOT faster with a Monk as both Ret and Rogues don't really have a decent AoE until 40+ (45 for Ret and 63 for Rogue I believe). The daily also helps a lot. I know that leveling my Monk before the pre-patch was insanely fast. Might be slower with the changes to FoF, however.

None of this is relevant to my question.

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Honestly, if you've got the gold it's going to be a quick trip to the AH on your main, buy all the things you need/want, then mail them to your alt. IIRC the DMF Tophat can even be mailed to your own characters(can someone confirm this?), so that only requires a little bit of farming the DMF on a main. The time needed to get the hats is minor. They're cheap and easy.

I would definitely consider it worth the time to get the hats.

Thanks, will give it a shot.

[Jngizu]

None of this is relevant to my question.

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Thanks, will give it a shot.

How is it not relevant? You wanted to know how much of a difference that preparation made, I just gave you my perspective leveling up doing none of it so you could compare. As in if you don't want to bother/spend the money, you have an idea what kind of difference it makes. Should have known better than to try to help, though.

[SirCowdog]

Thanks, will give it a shot.

Sorry, I don't know if that was good info or not. I couldn't really give it a hard-math ratio of time spent getting the DMF buff vs how much time it saves while questing. Getting the tickets to afford the tophats is a pain in the ass. You either have to fish to do the hidden treasure map for 100 tickets = 10 top hats = 10 hours of bonus experience. Or you have to play the minigames or collect tickets in other ways.

But lets look at it this way: 10% bonus exp means for every hour you play you get 6 free minutes. 10 hats = 60 minutes of "Free" extra time. So unless it takes you an hour to collect 10 hats via the quest: https://www.wowhead.com/quest=38934/silas-secret-stash, you'll be saving time.

Honestly it's probably not actually worth the effort, now that I really crunch the numbers and get into the details. :/

[bullseyed]

[*]Bags: This SHOULD be a no-brainer. The cheap-o version are Netherweave bags, but if you have the gold I recommend you get the largest bags you can afford, since it means you won't have to stop to clean them out as often. In fact, if you have an excess of gold, it's probably not even worth your time to stop and loot mobs that aren't quest objectives. This seems like a small thing, but over the course of 100+ levels, all those clicks to loot add up.

... You're this into leveling and not using an addon to auto-vendor grays with a vendor mount?


I never understand when people complain about bag management. Get ElvUI or LeatrixPlus.

[SirCowdog]

... You're this into leveling and not using an addon to auto-vendor grays with a vendor mount?


I never understand when people complain about bag management. Get ElvUI or LeatrixPlus.

No one said anything about complaining? o_O

Also, Grays aren't the only things that take up bag space. But yes, everything you said would save a tiny bit of time. I mainly didn't list it because it's fairly expensive and raw bag space is generally more important so you have to stop less often. Normal vendors are available in the same place as quest hubs, so it didn't seem worth making a point about it.

It's utility is also somewhat diminished past level 60 where you'll spend a vast majority of your time flying anyway. But for sure, if you've got it, use it!

[spleen1015]

Thanks for doing this again!

[SirCowdog]

I need an independant confirmation on something:

I was leveling a Demon Hunter for farming purposes(because it's another easily capped toon), when I noticed that treasures in Legion appear to be giving experience now. I want to make sure it's not a fluke, because when I tested this last week they weren't giving experience.

The treasures I collected were in Stormheim in the northern part of the map, each granting about 9k experience for a character with no heirlooms at level 107.

If EVERY treasure in Legion is granting experience, between full looms and war mode, this might be a new way to level through Legion after WoD treasures stop being worthwhile at 106/107. It's also a pretty significant source of gold as a side effect.

[Thelxi]

Putting an xp gem in a belt is genius.

Also for visibility: get the elemental force enchant. It is cheap and does a lot of work, especially at the lower levels. I wish everyone I see in dungeons would know this.

[Oerba Yun Fang]

I need an independant confirmation on something:

I was leveling a Demon Hunter for farming purposes(because it's another easily capped toon), when I noticed that treasures in Legion appear to be giving experience now. I want to make sure it's not a fluke, because when I tested this last week they weren't giving experience.

The treasures I collected were in Stormheim in the northern part of the map, each granting about 9k experience for a character with no heirlooms at level 107.

If EVERY treasure in Legion is granting experience, between full looms and war mode, this might be a new way to level through Legion after WoD treasures stop being worthwhile at 106/107. It's also a pretty significant source of gold as a side effect.

I just went and grabbed a few random treasures in Azsuna on my 102 Rogue and none of them gave me any EXP.

[SirCowdog]

I just went and grabbed a few random treasures in Azsuna on my 102 Rogue and none of them gave me any EXP.

I noticed that too. Azuna treasures no. Stormheim treasures yes.

Guess we'll have to check each zone?

[Oerba Yun Fang]

I noticed that too. Azuna treasures no. Stormheim treasures yes.

Guess we'll have to check each zone?

I'm not getting any from Stormheim, Val'sharah, or Highmountain treasures either. Odd.

[Dreadlack]

Legion invasions still give massive exp until you ding 111, so that's basically one free level if you have any 110 alts. Did it on my warrior.

Also noticed the part in OP about shoulder and leg enchant, if you have a level appropriate character, you can enchant heirlooms and send them, thus having the enchants on a much lower level before you can apply the enchant (they still scale down though).

[craigw]

make sure your profession users are at least level 80/85 then go on your scribe create shoulder enchants. create heirloom for the toon you are leveling use shoulder enchants on the heirloom, send it to your toon that is being leveled. take a tailor create leg enchant, create leg heirloom for toon you are leveling. use enchant on legs send them to toon that is being leveled. you can use shoulder and leg enchants at level one. yes it can be done and it def scales like everything else.

[SirCowdog]

I'm not getting any from Stormheim, Val'sharah, or Highmountain treasures either. Odd.

I have a theory:

I think treasures might only be worth exp if it's during your active campaign chosen at the Order Hall mission table. I'll need to finish stormheim and pick a new target to test it though.

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Legion invasions still give massive exp until you ding 111, so that's basically one free level if you have any 110 alts. Did it on my warrior.

Also noticed the part in OP about shoulder and leg enchant, if you have a level appropriate character, you can enchant heirlooms and send them, thus having the enchants on a much lower level before you can apply the enchant (they still scale down though).

Wait...what? As in, enchant them on a character above lvl 85, then mail them to the alt? That actually works? ROFL!

[SirCowdog]

I have a theory:

I think treasures might only be worth exp if it's during your active campaign chosen at the Order Hall mission table. I'll need to finish stormheim and pick a new target to test it though.

Theory checked and failed. There doesn't appear to be any explanation that I can find for why Stormheim treasures are worth exp, but other zones aren't. However, Stormheim treasure collection is VERY good experience per hour with heirlooms equipped. I would recommend questing and collecting treasures as you go, and it should jump you from 106-107 to 110 VERY quickly.

Updated the initial guide to correct a few other things:

IQD portal can not be entered before 70. The time required to fly to reach the portal in Shattrath from Northrend is extremely inconvenient. The zone itself is still very good exp/h, but counterbalanced by the time needed to get there. It's probably not worthwhile unless you're already questing in Dragonblight, and have switched your hearth to the MoP Shrine at 70+., since you can jump straight to dalaran and shatt from there.

[Deleted]

Nice dude. So nice of you to make this thread

[Oerba Yun Fang]

Theory checked and failed. There doesn't appear to be any explanation that I can find for why Stormheim treasures are worth exp, but other zones aren't. However, Stormheim treasure collection is VERY good experience per hour with heirlooms equipped. I would recommend questing and collecting treasures as you go, and it should jump you from 106-107 to 110 VERY quickly.

Updated the initial guide to correct a few other things:

IQD portal can not be entered before 70. The time required to fly to reach the portal in Shattrath from Northrend is extremely inconvenient. The zone itself is still very good exp/h, but counterbalanced by the time needed to get there. It's probably not worthwhile unless you're already questing in Dragonblight, and have switched your hearth to the MoP Shrine at 70+.

I'm still wondering what you did to even make Stormheim treasures give you EXP. The ones I've collected all gave me nothing, even in Stormheim.

[SirCowdog]

I'm still wondering what you did to even make Stormheim treasures give you EXP. The ones I've collected all gave me nothing, even in Stormheim.

I was playing a demonhunter and picked Stormheim as my first zone to quest in. That's it. Level 106. The DH was not wearing heirlooms(mostly because I didn't have the gold handy to upgrade leather to 110 at the time.

I'm working on a hunter right now. Currently level 69, so I'll try stormheim again when I get to the broken isles.

[Dan Delion]

Excellent well written guide. Thanks for this. Many of these tips really helped me.